This is really directed to FileMaker, but we'd appreciate other developers' advice.

FileMaker obviously have some teething issues with their new layout tools, particularly with old formats such as drop shadow, embossed, engraved, etc. We're currently looking at a layout with 2 fields side-by-side set as pop up menus with identical formatting set in the inspector, that appear totally different on the layout (screen shot attached), because one was set to be a pop up menu in the FMP 11 file it was converted from and the other has since been set to a pop up menu post conversion.

Therefore, should we be go through every object in our converted files and change all formatting to match the current tools available - in the case of portals, the only way we've found of doing this is to delete and replace with new - on the assumption FileMaker are not going to give us any of our old tools back? Or do we leave everything as is, formatted as per FMP11 and hope they'll keep displaying correctly as inevitable updates are released?

The former is a huge amount of work and potentially a complete waste of time. The latter is a potential minefield.

Can you copy the style from the "new" field and apply it to the old field to get matching effects? If that works, it would avoid having to delete and recreate the older version of the field anew in 12.

In the testing I have done, Projects that have been converted to FileMaker 12 will require extensive checking (and quite probably editing) of every field, object and tab. There are several issues with the conversion from pixels to points, These manifests themselves in problems related to sliding, part and sub-summary breaks, The precision of part breaks function different than they did in FileMaker 11 and earlier. Also if you had any Tabs that used the Embossed/Engraved these are going to look very different in FM12.

In addition there is a SERIOUS bug in converted buttons... When clicking into any button converted to FM12 (even the simplest buttons) to edit the text... The button collapses down to a single point forcing you to re-size the button again.

The way FM handles positioning when adjusting parts has always been buggy. Unfortunately this has NOT been fixed. To make matters worse the new point based approach down to 3 decimal places makes building or editing layouts with a lot of sub-summary breaks almost like torture. I constantly have to reset the positional info in the inspector to get objects or fields into the proper place.

As to the conversion issues... With any luck this will be improved with updates. I remember when FM7 came out converting older files resulted in lots of problems, But when FM8 came out converting the same files was flawless.

My personal conclusion is that based on the current state of the conversion process... Every layout would need to be completely rebuilt. While I am sure that there are those who may not be as picky, I like every pixil to look the way it was designed to.

Thanks guys, I believe wsvp has summed up where we were going, although Stephen and brsamuel's suggestions are valid. Certainly creating a new portal and copying the style to an old portal using the format painter seems to overcome the inability to restyle old portals using the inspector, which will save time.

We believe we're also going the complete layout update/rebuild as we're nervous where old layout objects will end up as new updates are released. I guess the main deciding factor is whether the database is being written for commercial purposes. As all of ours are either for cloud hosting or for customers, we can't take any chances.

OK, having spent more time with FMP 12 I now understand that the majority of our woes have been due to working on an FMP 11 converted file. There are certain things that you just cannot change from within a converted file.

However, if you use a brand new FMP 12 file, set the styles you want in that, then copy and paste an object into your converted file, you can then copy the style to the legacy objects.

Bit of a pain, but at least a way forward.

I've added this to my earlier post, so apologies to anyone who receives 2 copies of this. However, I also hope it helps someone who has been fighting the formatting battles we have.